“Saw Him Today”

Sunday, July 30, 1911: Went to Sunday school this afternoon. Was the only one present in our class, even our teacher wasn’t there. Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Seibert were here this afternoon. Saw him today.

The McEwensville Baptist Church building is long gone, but it once was in this area of McEwensville.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Whew, it doesn’t sound like there was much of a Sunday School class—no teacher and one student. Did Grandma attend another class with people in a different age group or did she just go home?

I wonder how many students were in the class on a typical week. Two Sunday’s ago Grandma had also written that she was the only student in her class.

Every Sunday since Grandma began keeping the diary in January she has said that she went to Sunday School. She must have generally found Sunday School to be meaningful—and I guess these summer Sunday’s were exceptions.

I have no idea who Mr. and Mrs. Charles Seibert were.

I think that “him” refers to a guy Grandma liked. The previous day she’d written that she’d had quite a good time at a festival in McEwensville and that “He was there. B.”

I think that this entry was referring to the same guy.

I wish that Grandma had used the complete names of guys she liked—but instead she always used initials or pronouns.

I guess that Grandma worried that her mother or sister Ruth would read the diary—though I’d think that they would have known who B. referred to–so initials seem unnecessary. But to the teen-ager writing the diary it probably felt safer to not refer to guys by name.

5 thoughts on ““Saw Him Today””

I’m really enjoying this blog. I actually adore the mystery of the simple sentence “Saw him today.” As a 15 year old girl she was cautious enough to keep us from discovering too many of her secrets 100 years later! Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks for stopping by. I enjoy the mysteries in the blog–and I enjoy speculating about what she really meant when she wrote it. I’m often am not sure how far afield to go when speculating. Stay tuned. . .